nancy milena hincapiÉ valbuena viviana nohemi cely …
TRANSCRIPT
The use of real women’s life stories as a situated writing model:
Empowering students to create their own path
NANCY MILENA HINCAPIÉ VALBUENA
VIVIANA NOHEMI CELY OJEDA
Universidad Pedagógica Nacional
Human Sciences Faculty
Foreign Languages Department
Bogotá,
2018
The use of real women’s life stories as a situated writing model:
Empowering students to create their own path
NANCY MILENA HINCAPIÉ VALBUENA
VIVIANA NOHEMI CELY OJEDA
This project is presented seeking to obtain the diploma of Licenciatura en Español y
Lenguas Extranjeras.
Project Director:
Johana Montaño Moreno
Universidad Pedagógica Nacional
Human Sciences Faculty
Foreign Languages Department
Bogotá,
2018
FORMATO
RESUMEN ANALÍTICO EN EDUCACIÓN - RAE
Código: FOR020GIB Versión: 01
Fecha de Aprobación: 10-10-2012 Página 3 de 100
RESUMEN ANALÍTICO EN EDUCACIÓN-RAE
1. Información General
Tipo de documento Trabajo de grado
Acceso al document Universidad Pedagógica Nacional. Biblioteca Central,
Título del documento
The use of real women’s life stories as a situated writing model: Empowering students to create their own path. (El uso de historias de vida de mujeres reales como un modelo de escritura situada: Empoderando a las estudiantes para crear su propio camino)
Autor(es) Cely Ojeda, Viviana Nohemí. Hincapié Valbuena, Nancy Milena.
Director Montaño Moreno, Johanna.
Publicación Bogotá. Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, 2018. 100 p.
Unidad Patrocinante Universidad Pedagógica Nacional.
Palabras Claves HISTORIAS DE VIDA DE MUJERES REALES; ESCRITURA SITUADA; ENFOQUE BASADO EN LOS GÉNEROS; ESCRITURA DEL DIARIO; INGLÉS COMO LENGUA EXTRANJERA.
2. Descripción
Este proyecto corresponde a una investigación-acción de carácter cualitativo llevada a cabo en el
Colegio Liceo Femenino Mercedes Nariño, localizado en el barrio Restrepo de Bogotá, teniendo como
población dos grupos de grado tercero. Mediante este proyecto se propone la implementación del uso
de historias de vida de mujeres reales reconocidas como “heroínas” como modelos de escritura
situada y a la vez, como un medio de aprendizaje del inglés como lengua extranjera y como una
herramienta que permite cambiar la visión del rol de la mujer en la sociedad y de esta manera
empoderar a las estudiantes, creando una conciencia de autonomía y reflexión, teniendo en cuenta
que la población de la institución es femenina, cumpliendo así, con los presupuestos del PEI
institucional. El proyecto estuvo guiado tanto por una pregunta de investigación así como de una serie
de objetivos que buscaba describir el impacto que el uso de historias de vida de mujeres genera al
momento de mejorar e incentivar los procesos de escritura situada de las estudiantes en la clase de
inglés. Por otro lado, el análisis de los resultados finales fue guiado por una serie de categorías que
emergieron de los datos recolectados a lo largo del proyecto, como respuesta a la pregunta de
investigación formulada. Las categorías de análisis buscaron: identificar el nivel de significación de
las historias de mujeres para las estudiantes y su papel en el mejoramiento de sus habilidades de
escritura, reconocer el rol de las historias de mujeres al empoderar a las estudiantes y crear una visión
crítica y reflexiva de sus contextos, así como describir las respuestas de las estudiantes frente esta
herramienta en términos de entusiasmo y seguridad. Las respuestas obtenidas como resultado de
esta investigación fueron los esperados en términos académicos y personales, ya que las estudiantes
mejoraron sus procesos de escritura en inglés, así como su visión sobre la importancia de la mujer en
la sociedad.
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4. Contenidos
Este documento está conformado por seis capítulos. El primer capítulo, presenta la contextualización,
la delimitación del problema, el planteamiento de la pregunta y los objetivos de investigación
propuestos en la primera fase del proyecto. El segundo capítulo expone, mediante el marco teórico y
el estado del arte, los constructos teóricos e investigativos que soportaron el presente proyecto de
investigación. El tercer capítulo corresponde a la metodología de investigación, allí se encuentran: el
tipo de investigación, los instrumentos empleados durante la etapa de aplicación y las distintas fases
mediante las que el proyecto se desarrolló. En el capítulo cuatro se presenta la intervención
pedagógica que se llevó a cabo a lo largo de la etapa de aplicación de la propuesta pedagógica. Por
otro lado, el capítulo número cinco aborda el análisis de los datos recolectados a lo largo de las fases
de diagnosis y aplicación y los resultados finales del proyecto. Por último, en el capítulo número seis
se plantean las conclusiones, implicaciones para la comunidad educativa, las limitaciones
encontradas a lo largo del proyecto de investigación y algunas recomendaciones para futuras
investigaciones.
5. Metodología
Esta investigación acción fue desarrollada mediante tres fases. La primera fase correspondió a la
fase de observación e identificación de una problemática en la población, específicamente en la clase
de inglés, mediante la aplicación de herramientas como: diarios de campo, entrevistas y encuestas.
En esta fase se plantearon la pregunta, los objetivos de investigación y la propuesta pedagógica del
presente proyecto. La segunda etapa correspondió a la aplicación de las herramientas seleccionadas
para el desarrollo de la propuesta pedagógica planteada con el fin de dar solución a la problemática
identificada en la etapa uno, estas herramientas fueron: libros de historias de vida de mujeres
reales, diarios, diarios de campo y cuestionarios. Finalmente, la etapa número tres consistió en el
cierre del proyecto y el análisis de resultados tanto en el texto investigativo como en la población,
mediante la aplicación de entrevistas, encuestas y la revisión del diario como producto final. La
puesta en práctica de la propuesta se realizó mediante tres ciclos de aplicación, tal y como
corresponde a los preceptos de la investigación-acción que consisten en planear -mediante la fase
de diagnóstico-, aplicar -mediante la fase de aplicación-, observar y finalmente reflexionar sobre los
resultados obtenidos al final del proyecto –mediante la etapa de análisis-, reflexiones plasmadas en
los capítulos de análisis y conclusiones finales.
6. Conclusiones
El uso de historias de vida de mujeres reales permitió que las estudiantes mejoraran su proceso de
escritura en inglés, ya que las historias de vida de mujeres reales las motivaron a escribir su diario
personal, empleando los textos como un modelo de escritura situada, encontrando así, una fuente
significativa de aprendizaje en los libros, por lo que la motivación y la confianza al expresarse, en este
caso de manera escrita, aumentó, obteniendo importantes resultados tanto en los aspectos
académicos de las estudiantes, como en los personales. En lo que respecta a los aspectos personales;
a pesar de su bajo nivel de lengua, las estudiantes sintieron mayor seguridad, entusiasmo y
motivación al tener que producir textos en inglés basados en su vida, en sus experiencias, sus sueños
y gustos, ya que esto hace parte directamente de sus contextos, lo que permitió conectar sus procesos
de aprendizaje académicos con sus realidades. Por último, las estudiantes empezaron a cambiar su
visión del rol de la mujer en la sociedad y pasar de considerarlo importante en los aspectos del hogar,
a empoderarse de este y crear su propia historia siendo “heroínas”, considerándose importante en
cada aspecto social. En términos generales, este proyecto logró hacer del proceso de aprendizaje del
inglés, enfocado en la producción escrita una experiencia significativa para las estudiantes,
centrándose no sólo en los objetivos académicos sino también en los aspectos personales de las
estudiantes.
Elaborado por: Cely Ojeda Viviana Nohemí - Hincapié Valbuena Nancy Milena.
Revisado por: Montaño Moreno Johanna.
Fecha de elaboración del Resumen:
26 03 2018
Contents table
CHAPTER l: 3
CONTEXTUALIZATION AND RESEARCH PROBLEM 3
Context 3
Population 4
Problem Statement 5
Research Question 7
Research objectives 8
CHAPTER II 8
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND STATE OF ART 8
State of the Art. 9
Theoretical Framework 13
Situated Writing 13
CHAPTER III: 20
RESEARCH DESIGN 20
Research Paradigm 20
Type of Research 21
CHAPTER lV: 26
PEDAGOGICAL INTERVENTION 26
Vision of Curriculum 26
Vision of Language 27
Vision of Learning 28
Vision of Classroom 28
Instructional Design 29
CHAPTER V 33
DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 33
Procedures for Data Analysis 33
Categories of Analysis 35
Category 1: Real women’s life stories as a learning tool in an EFL classroom 37
Category 2: Empowering students through the reading and writing of women’s life stories 43
Category 3: Analyzing student responses to the use of genre based approach to develop situated
writing skills 47
Category 4: Factors that influenced students' situated writing performance 52
CHAPTER VI 56
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 56
Conclusions 56
Implications 58
Limitations 61
Further Research 61
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Triangulation plan ................................................................................................ 22
Table 2. The cycles of the study .......................................................................................... 29
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Categories and subcategories emerging from data analysis ………………… 33
LIST OF ANNEXES
Annex 1: Teacher’s interview .............................................................................................69
Annex 2: Teachers’ field notes.............................................................................................71
Annex 3: First students’ survey .........................................................................................73
Annex 4: Second students’ survey.......................................................................................76
Annex 5: Third students’ survey..........................................................................................77
Annex 6: Final students’ survey...........................................................................................78
Annex 7: Students’ interviews..............................................................................................79
Annex 8: Students’ diaries.................................................................................................... 80
Annex 9: Class lesson plan sample.......................................................................................82
Annex 10: Policarpa’s fanzine............................................................................................. 84
Annex 11: Consent format................................................................................................….88
Abstract
This qualitative action research study was focused on enhancing students’ writing skills
(understanding writing as a situated practice) through the creation of a diary following a genre
based approach, having as a basis two women’s life stories: Policarpa Salavarrieta and Frida
Kahlo. The study was developed in the first semester of 2017 and the second semester of 2018
in an EFL classroom with sixty-two students of two third grades at Liceo Femenino Mercedes
Nariño School. Data was collected by means of surveys, interviews, field notes and students’
artifacts. The use of the real women’s life stories as a writing model revealed to have a
supportive and encouraging role; while the students used the stories as a guide to build their
own texts, they learned grammar forms, improved their writing skills, expressed their feelings,
and dreams and moreover, they found themselves as valuable women in society.
Keywords: Real women’s life stories, situated writing, genre based approach, diary writing,
English as a Foreign Language.
Resumen
Este estudio cualitativo de investigación-acción se centró en mejorar las habilidades de
escritura de los estudiantes (entendiendo la escritura como una práctica situada) a través de la
creación de un diario siguiendo un enfoque basado en los géneros, teniendo como base las
historias de vida de dos mujeres: Policarpa Salavarrieta y Frida Kahlo. El estudio fue
desarrollado en el primer semestre de 2017 y el segundo semestre de 2018 en un aula de
enseñanza del inglés como Lengua Extranjera con sesenta y dos estudiantes de dos grados
tercero en el colegio Liceo Femenino Mercedes Nariño. Los datos fueron recolectados por
medio de encuestas, entrevistas, diarios de campo y artefactos producidos por los estudiantes.
El uso de las historias de vida de mujeres reales como modelo de escritura, proporcionó apoyo
y motivación a las estudiantes; mientras que ellas usaron las historias como guía para construir
sus propios textos, aprendieron formas gramaticales, mejoraron sus habilidades de escritura,
expresaron sueños y, además, descubrieron que son mujeres valiosas en la sociedad.
Palabras clave: Historias de vida de mujeres reales, escritura situada, enfoque basado en los
géneros, escritura de diarios, inglés como lengua extranjera.
CHAPTER l
CONTEXTUALIZATION AND RESEARCH PROBLEM
Context
The institution chosen to conduct this project was the Liceo Femenino Mercedes
Nariño which is currently placed in Avenida Caracas # 23–24 Sur, diagonal the Restrepo
transmilenio station. Covering the main needs of the neighborhood and the locality, being a
feminine school, Liceo Femenino was, first, in charge of giving education in topics such as
homemaking duties, but over time Liceo has become an institution where the knowledge is
linked with the MEN standards, leaving behind the first curriculum given to the school.
The school’s teaching methodology is based on the holistic model, where teachers
work as facilitators; they are the guides and students are the main actors, since they are the
teaching processes main reason. Liceo Femenino School has developed an assessment system
called S.I.E.L (Sistema Integrado de Evaluación Liceísta); this system has been designed in
order to set a dialogic and educational assessment process which is divided into three parts:
Self-assessment from the students, Peer-assessment from classmates and parents and
Teacher-assessment from the teachers. On the subject of PEI, the school has designed a PEI
focused on the transformation starting from the students’ reflection and autonomy, with a
scientific and technological perspective.
Liceo Femenino School’s PEI aims to educate a woman who is creative and full of
values, women that use all the knowledge built at school in making business, using English
knowledge, technologies and contributing as leaders in the society. The school’s mission
outlines to rear autonomous women in a comprehensive education, in order to make
participative citizens who contribute in every aspect of the society. Finally, in the Liceo
Femenino Mercedes Nariño School students learn two languages, which are English and
French; for both of them the school curriculum suggests that learning should be based on
experiences and the use of the language in context. Although, English teaching is a priority at
all levels, in the elementary school students have only one hour of English class as well as
French per week and in the primary level there is only one teacher for the entire primary
section. The English teacher affirmed in our diagnosis interview that the lack of teachers is
covered by practicum students who have just one hour weekly to teach the topics set in the
curriculum and apply their research or practice projects at the same time (See annex 1).
Population
This project was developed with a group of 62 third grade students (two groups, each
group consisting of 31 students) between the ages of 8 and 9, all of them are girls as the
school is feminine. As a result of the diagnosis period, it was found that the activities they did
in classes were: drawing, coloring, writing, and repeating (See annex 2). Specifically in the
English class, they declared to enjoying it because they could use colors, draw, read and in
that way, they learned (See annex 3). Finally, their English skills performance was very
basic: their listening and oral production were acceptable, but the writing skill was not well
developed, therefore, this project aimed to develop their writing skills by using women’s
stories as a situated writing model.
Regarding to the places where students lived and the time they spent to get to school,
on average, the girls spent between 30 minutes to an hour and most of them lived in the south
part of Bogotá, like Santa Librada, La Candelaria, and San Cristobal. Talking about student’s
free time activities, those were, mostly, playing and watching TV. Some other girls claimed
to enjoy reading and drawing in their free time, which could be useful for the development of
the current project, since we aimed to use those skills in the project. Student’s interests in
class and more specifically, in English class, were reading and writing. They asserted that
they improved their writing and learned when reading and writing. In that way they could
travel, know foreign people or study something related to languages (see annex 3).
Problem Statement
Nowadays, English is one of the most important and used languages around the
world. In the Colombian context, English is highly valuable and the Ministry of Education
has been committed with its teaching. In 2006 the Ministry published the document: “Basic
Standards of Competence in Foreign Language: English” in which international parameters
were considered to teach and to learn English in the country. The implementation of the
standards aims to educate students to be competent in English language, for them to have
more job and educational opportunities, and mainly, to be prepared for the challenges of the
globalized world (MEN, 2006). In this regard, the standards are focused on the development
of the different skills such as reading, listening, writing, and speaking. Besides, these point
out the importance of adapting the contents to students’ realities. However, during the
diagnosis stage, a lack of writing production was detected, as well as an isolation between the
school’s contents and the girls’ contexts.
Students were focused on repeating teacher’s words, due to the fact that the activity
the teacher worked on most of the time was pronunciation and repetition, so students had to
respond to disconnected repetition commands, but there was never an autonomous production
exercise; on the contrary, in English classes, writing was just a mechanical exercise of
copying graphic symbols, and the topics treated were separated from each other (see annex
2), which became a problem in the process of learning taking into account that the entire
skills need to be connected and the learning process need to be contextualized and linked
with the students’ realities, for the student to experience a real significant learning process, as
the MEN standards document indicates.
Rationale of the study
Situated writing is a field which corresponds to an important part of the literacy and
the learning process in the classroom since, according to Chala and Chapetón (2012), it
encourages creation, interpretation and reflection within a specific ambit by means of the
writing activity, connecting the students’ realities and particular needs to their social, cultural
and academic context, where it is considered that students need to go beyond the mechanical
process of writing in the classroom and connect the academic knowledge to their lives, in
order to create a significant learning process. In this case, writing is not the result of the
learning process, but the medium for achieving it, that is why it is important to explore
writing as a situated practice in the classroom, considering that students have always learned
to respond to academic activities, but in an isolated way and as a result, they forget
everything they learned or do not find any connection between the school and their contexts.
On the contrary, through the use of the writing experience as a situated practice,
teachers do not only focus on the writing, but on the knowledge the students acquire (both
academic and personal) and the process they perform; here, writing is viewed as a purposeful
and meaningful process and not as a simple product (Chala and Chapeton, 2012) and in that
way, students can achieve a significant focused learning experience. To that effect, for
implementing writing as a situated practice in the classroom it is necessary to use a
mechanism, a topic or a methodology that links the writing process and the significant
learning process. One of these tools could be the women’s life stories, which might allow
students to recognize the role of women in history, to learn English as a Foreign Language, to
develop their writing skills and to create texts such as diaries that lead them to express their
feelings, dreams and reflections, taking inspiration from real women’s life stories as a
learning tool.
According to this, examining the discourses students have about historically
recognized women's lives in an EFL classroom becomes a potential research area considering
that the EFL community (at least in our National context) knows little about the impact of
this topic. We consider important for new researches and undergraduate projects to
understand how students construct their stories based on some very positive life examples,
and how to connect the academic aspect to the students’ personal aspects. On the other hand,
the Liceo Femenino could benefit from this project considering that we aim to encourage
girls to be reflective, conscious and autonomous, which somehow responds to its PEI.
Consequently, this research will be useful in other educational environments,
considering that it aims not only to educate but to succeed in the academic context, in order to
get to know students’ interests, stories, thoughts, and from there, to propose an education
based on students’ contexts, which will make the education process more significant. Finally,
this research will also be useful in our general context, where it is important to consider the
role of women for the construction of society, of values and customs. In view of the current
wave of defending women’s rights, we consider it important to raise awareness about their
importance and their abilities, working by the hand of this new generation.
Research Question
According to the aims, goals and pertinence of the current project, our research
attempted to respond to the following research question:
-What is the impact of using real women’s life stories to enhance situated writing
processes following a genre based approach in an EFL third grade classroom, at Liceo
Femenino Mercedes Nariño?
Research objectives
General
To describe the impact of using real women’s life stories to enhance situated writing
processes in an EFL third grade classroom, at Liceo Femenino Mercedes Nariño
Specific
- To recognize the role of a set of activities based on women’s life stories in the
development of writing skills in an EFL class.
- To analyze students’ responses to the use of women’s life stories following a genre based
approach in an EFL class.
- To identify the factors that influence students’ situated writing performance when
women’s life stories following a genre based approach are implemented.
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND STATE OF ART
In this section of the document the theoretical framework illustrates and characterizes
the constructs that guided this project. Those are situated writing, learning through diary
writing, genre based approach: exploring personal narrative, and women’s life stories as a
writing model. On the other hand, the state of art brings to light the review and analysis of
five (5) studies developed in recent years which provided an insight into the results obtained
when working with literature guided by the creation of the diary, as well as autobiographies
and short stories for promoting the creation of self-stories.
State of the Art.
The first study was conducted by Álvarez (2016), named “Instructional strategies to
enhance writing skills through autobiographies since an inclusive classroom” where the
author used the constructivist teaching model divided into four (4) implementation phases to
allow third grade students to understand the English language, to exercise by writing and
finally to present an autobiography as a result of the learning process. Those phases were: 1)
Playing with words, 2) The magic pencil, 3) I am a writer, and finally 4) My autobiography.
In this study, the author started by showing the student’s isolated vocabulary in general, then,
students played with words, memorized them and in the final phases it was implemented in
the project of writing students’ own biographies by the previous knowledge. According to the
author, at the end of the project the students were able to write a text, to recognize and play
with words in their autobiography by using short clauses with specific information.
This study was worthwhile for the present project as our proposal looked forward to
the girls to write a diary about their own lives, based on real women’s life stories. The most
significant contribution of Álvarez’ research to the project was how to get students closer to
the contents they need to know for writing their diaries considering their knowledge about
English is very basic and specific. It was necessary to endow girls with specific and
contextualized vocabulary and contents in order for them to write a specific, descriptive and
very telling fragment of their thoughts in their diary.
The second study named “The use of a picture book project based on biographies and
autobiographies as activities in the development of children writing skill” directed by
Velasco (2013), was based on Freinet Techniques which present an innovative way of
learning and teaching writing, through the introduction to write by the natural method, which
contains three steps: first, drawing; second, drawing and writing; and third, writing without
drawing. This research was implemented in 3 phases: 1) Reading comprehension, 2)
expressing myself into drawing and writing, 3) writing production. The results of this
investigation were relevant since the creation of the picture book allowed the students to
develop their writing skills, their interpretation capacity and their understanding of semiotic
concepts while they were writing and drawing about their personal experiences and lives,
which created an enthusiasm and motivation atmosphere in the classroom. This research was
helpful for our project since it focused on allowing students to interpret their contexts and
realities, write their personal experiences and draw them in a diary, generating enthusiasm
and participation.
A third study that we considered appropriate for our research project was “Fostering
writing skills through the use of contextualized short stories”, it was developed by Barragán
(2014). This was a qualitative action research study made with 76 third grade students from a
public school in Bogotá which used contextualized short stories to teach English. The
information was collected mainly through field notes, surveys and documents as tests and
writing products. The results demonstrated that the reading of contextualized short stories in
English class increased students’ motivation and led them to discover strategies to understand
the language. The study also showed that the students used the short stories as references in
the moment of writing exercises and finally, were able to remember numerous words. This
study was relevant for our research since it coped with contextualized short stories in English
class as a means to foster writing skills; the results proved that using contextualized stories
helps and encourages students to learn a language and use it to produce texts, which is one of
the research goals; to motivate students to write in English by means of contextualized
stories.
Another research proposal that we considered relevant for our study was developed by
Pulecio Santos (2009). It is “El diario íntimo (1834) de George Sand: Propuesta pedagógica
para un curso de literatura francesa” This was a pedagogical proposal set out with the
objective of improving French skills and it specifically aimed to create a space for
meaningful learning through the exploration and discovering of the French writer George
Sand and her intimate diary. The proposal tackled five stages: the first one is the
Contextualization, in which students discovered the political and historical context in which
the intimate diary was written; the second one was named “What is an intimate diary”? This
part of the project aimed to explore the content of a personal diary; the third one was the
Author’s presentation, in which the students reviewed George Sand’s life; the fourth was the
Reflection about the author, in this stage students had the opportunity to express their own
points of view in regards to the exercise of analyzing Sand’s career path, and the last part was
the Invitation to create a diary.
Although the pedagogical proposal was never implemented, we considered that this
idea is absolutely important for our project, considering that it was focused on the
improvement of foreign language skills based on an empowered woman’s life, capable to
break social impositions and able to remain through history. This proposal corresponded,
precisely, to the purpose of our project which was learning English and producing a diary,
based on the stories of real, strong and famous women throughout history. That way, students
could reflect upon their lives, realize that they could be important in history and, at the same
time, to improve their English writing skills.
The last study was titled “Genre-based tasks in foreign language writing: Developing
writer’s genre awareness, linguistic knowledge, and writing competence” performed by
Yasuda (2011). This was a qualitative and quantitative study developed with 70 students in
an English writing course at a private university in Japan. It aimed to examine how novice
foreign language writers developed their linguistic knowledge, genre awareness and writing
competence by using the pre-and post-emails tasks in order to collect data, surveys and
interviews. Yasuda designed a syllabus in which students followed different tasks with a
specific purpose for using language. These tasks involved 4 phases: task input, in which
students analyzed email samples; pedagogic task, focused on form and function, that is to
say, an explicit grammar explanation; target task, in which students wrote the email
demonstrating what they learned, and the last one; task follow-up, in which students
reflected to perceive strengths and difficulties during their writing process.
The study’s results showed that students improved their writing skills (fluency and
use of language) when composing emails, highlighting that writing skills development is not
given by a mechanical process, but by means of the use of linguistic resources in a specific
context. That is precisely what we sought to do in our project; to demonstrate writing was
more significant when students used the grammar knowledge in a particular context, in this
case when they talked about themselves, rather than using writing simply as a medium to
solve vocabulary exercises.
Theoretical Framework
Situated Writing
Firstly, it is necessary to define how literacy will be understood in this study to focus
later, on the understanding of situated writing. Lankshear and Knobel (2006) state that:
Literacies are socially recognized ways of generating, communicating and negotiating
meaningful content through the medium of encoded texts within contexts of participation in
discourses (...) this means that literacy is a set of practices that includes such socially evolved
and patterned activities as letter writing, keeping records and inventories, keeping a diary,
writing memos, posting announcements, and so on (Lankshear and Knobel, 2006).
According to this, literacy could be understood as a process that encourages creation,
interpretation, and reflection to achieve self-expression and communication particularly by
means of defined written texts, centered on specific contexts. The previous definition
corresponds to the aims of the present research, which is to encourage students to express and
communicate by means of a situated writing practice through the diary writing exercise in the
academic context.
Following the idea of literacy within contexts of participations, or situated contexts,
we rely on Barton and Hamilton (1998), who consider that: “Literacy events are activities
where literacy has a role. Usually there is a written text, or texts, central to the activity and
there may be talk around the text” (p.8). Barton and Hamilton affirm that the text is a major
aspect forasmuch as literacy is better understood by the use of writing productions, with
respect to this, they affirm that “Texts are a crucial part of literacy events and the study of
literacy is partly a study of texts and how they are produced and used” (p.9). Keeping up with
the previous, now it is important to focus on the understanding of writing, this as a situated
practice, since it is a fundamental concept in the current research.
To start with, it is pertinent to know why writing is a situated practice. “Writing is
situated because it takes place at specific ambits, at specific moments, and serve specific
needs... it makes part of the world and acquires meaning within the context where it occurs”
(Chala and Chapeton, 2012, p.26). That means that writing is a process that connects
individual’s realities to their social and cultural contexts, therefore, writing is shaped for
personal features as well as personal experiences and it is developed in a particular moment,
that is why it is a situated practice.
Accordingly, situated writing is a practice in which writers' life experiences, feelings
and dreams, as well as their background, and personal characteristics (gender, age), are taken
into account in the writing process, Lillis (quoted by Chala and Chapeton, 2012). In other
words, writing is seen as a medium of self-expression that connects individuals to their
context and to their inner worlds; hence, the writing process is more relevant than the final
product, it means that writing goes beyond the simple mastering of the linguistic code.
In this research, situated writing occurs through the creation of a diary, this tool is
used to link students' lives to the learning process, since it is a medium for sestate of the art
lf -expression by means of English writing. By fostering situated writing practices, we
aim to build a meaningful and purposeful learning process, in which English learning is
contextualized, and writing is an instrument to student self-recognition and empowerment;
the girls learn while they write about themselves.
Following these statements, situated writing corresponds to an important part of
literacy in which the context, the practice and the academic goal are the fundamentals of a
learning process, by means of activities that encourage and develop positive attitudes and
confidence in students towards the process of writing. In this case, the fundamentals for this
research are teaching EFL in a third grade classroom, leading the students to write their own
stories and having as a role the academic development and the social reflection of the girls in
and beyond the boundaries of the classroom.
Learning through Diary Writing
Since human beings felt the need of confronting their own reality through writing, the
diary has been a constant means of expression in the Universal literature. Bleibergs (as cited
in Cano, 1987) affirms that a diary is a record of events by days, which is extremely
interesting for literary history by reason of its reflection directly on the writer’s psychology.
The value of the diary, precisely relies on its advantages, which are, first, the possibility of
entering the author into a situated writing process and second, its spontaneity and the
possibility it provides him for expressing and confessing his feelings and inner thoughts. In
this context, the diary is more than an encoded text; what determines the diary is not the
systematic written process itself, but the effect it aims to produce. According to Picard
(2006), the diary is seen as a document which describes the relation me-world, and it works
as a document that relates to the way in which every individual perceives the world and
perceives himself in the world.
The diary, applied as a learning tool in the EFL classroom, is beneficial for both
students and teachers; throughout the process of writing the diary, the writer, in this case; the
student, conscious of the problem of what to write and how to write, needs a quotidian
exercise that functions as training; a notebook in which he writes his inner thoughts and
deepest feelings, in this case, a diary in which they register their realities, ideas, desires,
expectations, among others. On the other hand, according to Kir (2012), the diary works as a
reflective instrument for the EFL teacher, since: “reflective writing is a useful way for both
promoting and understanding teachers’ professional activity and growth. Through diary
keeping teachers may become more observant and careful to teaching and learning processes”
(Kir. 2012, p. 02).
In view of the above, the importance that we attach to the diary in the EFL classroom
in the current project is that students, apart from reflecting their inner ideas, expressions,
realities, and dreams are learning and developing confidence towards their situated writing
processes, considering that we believe that the more they write, the simpler and far more
comprehensible their English becomes, what allows them to create a more conscious exercise
considering that they are writing about themselves, their own stories and placing themselves
into the world, just like real women considered as “heroines” did at the time.
Genre Based Approach: Exploring the Personal Narrative
Now, it is suitable to understand the genre based approach and why it is pertinent for
the present study. Conforming to Hyland (2004) genre based approach assumes language as
an exploration, and it takes into account content, context, and also the writer’s needs; in his
words, “Genre-based teaching is concerned with what learners do when they write” (p.5). It
states the idea of writing goes beyond linguistic forms.
Specifically, the genre based approach is a method in which a text of a certain genre is
taken as a guide in the writing process, in that way, learners understand how the texts are
grammatically structured, and then they produce their own writings, but it is not about
copying the same, it is “to become aware of writing as a tool that can be used and
manipulated” (Ahn, 2012, p.3). It means that the genre based approach aims to develop
writing skills while students feel supported by a particular text, which is a fundamental part
of the current research. In addition, this approach connects text and context, since students
have the opportunity to focus on a genre that in fact is used in real life, it allows them to
understand that writing is embedded in familiar contexts and this could be motivating for
their learning process (Hyland, 2004). In this study the learners have as a guide Policarpa and
Frida's personal narrations to discover English language and to write about their own lives.
Lastly, in agreement with Ahn (2012) the genre based approach is particularly useful
at the first stage of learning because it helps to develop students’ awareness of linguistic
structures, that is why we decide to consider this approach to help students to develop their
writing process. To finish, the genre used in this study was personal narrative, in which
students talk about triatheir experiences, beliefs and reflect on their own lives (Bastian,
2010), following this, we used as a model Policarpa Salavarrieta and Frida Kahlo's lives in
order to motivate students to write a diary in English.
Real Women’s life Stories
Firstly, to understand the use of real women’s life stories in this study, it is relevant to
make an approximation to literature’s definition. The concept of literature is wide and
includes, as is stated by Wellek and Warren (1949) everything in print; which means that
literature could be a flyer, a magazine, a dictionary, a book, a diary, or in this particular case
a fanzine. Going beyond, conforming to Eagleton (1983), across history, literature has been
defined as a set of imaginative writings, or simply, as the transformation of the quotidian
language into an extraordinary one.
However, defining literature is a difficult task, certainly the concepts of literature are
still evolving and all we can do is to make an approximation of its definition. In the present
research, literature is understood as the use of language to express ideas, thoughts and beliefs,
this through fanzines that talk about real women’s life stories. On the other hand, literature
has been a powerful tool for learning; its role in the educational field has been crucial.
According to Eagleton (1983), through literature and reading, students discover their inner
and outside worlds, as well as they develop their personalities, their imagination and their
critical sense. The current study uses literature, particularly, real women’s life stories since it
acts as a means to explore and learn the English language; likewise, it encourages girls to
take positive attitudes towards life, inspiring them to create their own path.
In addition to this and according to the Cambridge dictionary (2017) “a real life story
is a story that is based on real rather than imaginary events”, events which can be used as
models or as a means of information. This study is based on real women’s life stories as
mediators between the process of learning a new language and encouraging students to think,
create and reflect by producing their own texts. According to the UNESCO, the
empowerment of women through literacy learning is only one important part of the total
picture considering that:
Supporting women in learning, questioning, understanding and challenging the suppression
they experience empowers them (...) the process of learning also makes a difference. A
didactic, technical, pre-prescribed approach to literacy learning is far less likely to produce
long-lasting development than one which sets out to respond to women’s situations and
engage and involve them in determining a relevant and rewarding learning experience.
(UNESCO, 2013)
This is why this research is based on life stories about great women in history, looking
forward to empower girls to write about them and to create their own stories, based on the
given ones, used as mentioned previously, as models.
This chapter presented the different studies that supported our research and the main
concepts that framed our theoretical framework. Also, we defined and characterized the
fundamental constructs of our research project, which at the same time, were supported in the
light of theory. The following chapter will present the research design, the data collection
instruments and the data collection procedures we applied in our project.
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH DESIGN
In this chapter key aspects related to the research design methodology will be
described; aspects such as the paradigm, the type of research, the instruments used for data
collection, as well as the data collection procedures used in the current project.
Research Paradigm
This project corresponded to a qualitative research paradigm. Burns (1999) claims “the
aim of qualitative approaches is to offer descriptions, interpretations and clarifications of
naturalistic social contexts” (p.22). In the current project, we managed to understand and to
explain how worthwhile women’s life stories were when used in an EFL classroom with the
aim of improving students’ writing skills, being that this is the problem identified during the
observation process; related to this Dewey (1929) asserts that “All reflective inquire starts
from a problematic situation, and no such situation can be settled in its own term” (p. 34).
In keeping with this goal, Dörnyei (2011) affirms that “almost every aspect of language
acquisition and use is determined or significantly shaped by social, cultural and situational
factors, and qualitative research is ideal for providing insights into such contextual conditions
and influences” (p. 36). Corresponding to this, we chose the qualitative paradigm, because
apart from understanding the problematic issue regarding EFL in the classroom, we also
wanted to focus on social aspects, in this case, students’ contexts and realities and important
women’s life stories as the implemented instrument for achieving the objectives of our
project.
Type of Research
This project corresponded to an action research study due to the teacher’s commitment
with the transformation of their own educational practice and the students’ learning
processes. According to Carr & Kemmis (1986), action research is an approach that links
reflection to action, it goes from the theory to the practice and vice versa and proposes that
the education reality cannot be transformed without the understanding of the social actors
involved in it. From the point of view of Gómez, Et al. (1993), action research focuses on the
understanding of the educational process and uses it as a tool to transform the reality. It leads
teachers to reflect on their own performance and helps them to make decisions and to
implement new strategies in order to improve their educational practice. Furthermore,
Kemmis and Mctaggart (1985), suggest that the following are the main stages of the action
research process: to plan strategies to improve what is already happening, to act by
implementing the plan, to observe the effects of the implemented strategies, and to reflect on
those effects to make a further planning.
As a conclusion and in agreement with the definitions provided above, this is an action
research study, since it proposes to explore the participants’ realities, listen to their voices,
and reflect on different situations to propose strategies to transform the educational reality
from the teacher's role.
Data collection Instruments and Procedures
In this chapter section, the data collection instruments applied in the project, as well
as the procedures we used in order to collect information and the information collected itself
will be presented and explained.
First, in order to develop a triangulation plan, four different data collection
instruments were used: field notes, surveys, interviews and artifacts. According to Pierce
(2007), triangulation is a method used in some research studies in order to obtain an efficient
corroboration of any crucial account. It involves seeking accounts from three or more
perspectives at different times, with the objective to compare, contrast and confirm
information (Turner and Turner 2009) and in that way, to obtain confidence on the findings.
Finally, as the obtained data needed to be trustworthy, we supported this investigation
under the concepts of validity which is the relevance, appropriateness of the data to our
research question and the directness and strength of its association with the concepts under
scrutiny, and reliability which is, “literally, the extent to which we can rely on the source of
the data and, therefore, the data itself. Reliable data is dependable, trustworthy, unfailing,
sure, authentic, genuine, reputable” (Pierce, 2007, p, 83). Following the previous, Patton
(2002), states that validity and reliability are two factors which any qualitative researcher
should be concerned about while designing a study, analyzing results and judging the quality
of the study.
Table 1. Triangulation plan
Research objective
Data
source #
1
Data
source #
2
Data
source #
3
Data
source #
4
To describe the impact of using real women’s life
stories, to enhance situated writing processes in an
EFL third grade classroom, at Liceo Femenino
Mercedes Nariño
Field
notes
Surveys
Interviews
Diaries
To recognize the role of a set of activities based on
women’s life stories in the development of writing
skills in an EFL class.
Field
notes
Surveys
Interviews
Diaries
Identify the factors that influence students’ situated
writing performance when women’s life stories
following a genre based approach are implemented.
Interviews
Surveys
Field
notes
Diaries
Field notes. According to DeWalt, Kathleen and DeWalt, Billie R. (2002) field
notes are tools or instruments for data collection which allow the researcher to take notes in a
different way, including descriptive and interpretive notes. Those field notes are useful to
register all the perceptions the researcher got (in this case) in the classroom and help
organizing and identifying keyword elements during the data collection process. It is
important to mention that those field notes also include reports of non-verbal information,
physical settings, group structures, and records of conversations; information which is very
useful and needed in the process of reflection as it helps researchers to understand the
classroom context. This instrument was used in order to register the activity, perceptions and
the key points of the students’ English classes and their learning processes (see annex 2)
during the observation process in the first semester of 2017. Those notes constituted an
evidence of first-hand experience and helped collecting information and reflecting after every
class.
Surveys. As suggested by Burns (1999), surveys are written sets of questions
used to gain responses in non- face to face situations. In this instrument, the questions are
usually focused on specific topics or problems. Contrary to field notes, surveys are a non-
observational technique that shows qualitative results that allow the researcher to analyze
them and get the needed information. In this research, several surveys were applied to the
students at the beginning and at the end of the process, in order to recognize their
experiences, needs and perceptions in their contexts and specifically in English class. The
first survey consisted of getting to know the students’ contexts, needs and likes in order to
select the project materials and topics (see annex 3). The second survey was applied to know
the students’ writing level (see annex 4) the third survey was applied in order to keep track of
the students’ processes (see annex 5) and the last survey allowed us to check the final results
and to compare the students’ processes with the project’s goals (see annex 6).
Interviews. Following Seidman (2005), the purpose of in-depth interviewing are
neither to get answers to questions, nor to test hypotheses, and not to “evaluate” as the term is
normally used for, but to understand the experiences lived by other people and the meaning
they make of that experience. There are several types of interviews, the most common are the
telephone interview which can be made by a phone call or video; the panel interview, which
is a group of people interviewing a person at once; the face to face interview, which can be a
meeting made personally (it could be formal or informal, depending on the purposes of the
interview); the sequential interview, which is with different interviewers at a time, each of
them asking different questions; and finally, the group interview in which a group of
candidates will ask questions and interact with each other.
Along this research three face to face interviews were applied to the teacher and the
students at the beginning and at the end of the project. The teacher was asked with general
questions in order to know his perception about the students’ learning contexts and his point
of view related to the students’ learning experiences and needs, specifically in the English
class (See annex 1). On the other hand, an interview was applied to the students at the
beginning and at the end of the process, with the aim of comparing the results and to get to
analyze them in an objective way (see annex 7) This instrument allowed us to establish an
environment both formal (academic) and informal (familiar), by Asking questions in a natural
way, creating a confident environment, which complemented the formal artifacts and surveys.
Artifacts: Concerning artifacts, Craig affirms that “Artifacts usually consist of
[documents] that are readily available in the research setting” (Craig, 2009, p.154). Those are
important and useful tools used when doing research, usually within a qualitative paradigm.
In addition, Burns claims that “documents are a readily accessible source of data in action
research as many already exist in the institutional system. Documents accumulated during the
course of an enquiry can illuminate numerous aspects of practice” (Burns, 1999, p. 140).
The artifact collected in the present research was the diary the girls created based on their
own lives, experiences and dreams (see annex 8). Indeed, that was the main collecting data
instrument we based on in this research project, due to the fact that it was clear evidence of
what occurred in the classroom. We recognized this way of collecting data as labor-intensive
but fruitful, since it was the mechanism for encouraging girls to learn English and in that
way, to develop their writing skills by means of the diary writing exercise as our situated
writing exercise, being that these are the aims of our research project.
This chapter described the methodological design, the research paradigm, the type of
study as well as the data collection instruments and procedures carried out in the current
research project. The following chapter, presents a description of our pedagogical proposal,
the stages of the project and the visions of curriculum, classroom, language and learning
which underpinned our intervention.
CHAPTER lV
PEDAGOGICAL INTERVENTION
In this chapter we will bring to light the theory that supported the pedagogical
intervention proposed in this research. Concepts such as: curricular vision, vision of
language, vision of learning and vision of classroom will be developed, as well as the project
instructional design.
Vision of Curriculum
Concerning the term “curriculum”, Shao-Wen Su (2012), states that there are several
conceptions and definitions in relation to it such as: Curriculum as Courses of Study or
Contents, Curriculum as Documents, Curriculum as Experiences, Curriculum as Plans and
Curriculum as a Set of Objectives, among others. Corresponding to the goals established in
the school’s PEI and the purposes of the current project, our vision of curriculum was
centered in the concept of curriculum as a set of objectives considering that the Liceo
Femenino Mercedes Nariño aims to work by projects mediated by established teacher-
orientated objectives and educational goals that focus on products or ends and are clear and
specific in behavioral and observable terms. Those goals are to ¨educate autonomous, critic,
sensitive and investigative woman¨, LIFEMENA (2015).
On the other hand, according to Grundy’s visions of curriculum, this project adopted
the emancipatory vision since, in this vision, the curriculum is viewed as a praxis in which
the community is not only able to perform a collective learning action, but also to take
control of their own social and cultural situations and to act in a reflexive, responsible and
autonomous way. In this vision, the curriculum construction demands the ability to detach
from the social and cultural restrictions and to act reflectively, rationally and critically against
that reality, promoting the emancipation from the classroom (Grundy, cited in Vargas 2009),
which is, precisely, what we aimed with our research project; to build confidence, autonomy
and self-expression in third graders by means of a situated writing project in which girls
could read about important women through history viewed as “heroines” and got to identify
themselves as real heroines, so they could be autonomous, critic and could express
themselves by means of the writing process, which were both; the means and the goal of the
learning process.
Vision of Language
In our research project we took into account Sapir’s definition of language in which
he states that "Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating
ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.” (Sapir, 1921, p. 8).
According to this and to our research project goal, language is seen as a means of self-
expression. Related to this, Tudor (2001), establishes that language corresponds to the
medium by which we build up personal relationships, express our emotions and aspirations,
and explore our interests; definition that goes in line with Lier’s vision of classroom and
language learning in which he affirms that “language development, first and second, goes on
both, inside the classroom and outside it” (Lier, 1990). The previous definitions go together
with the main goals of our project since we aimed to enhance girls’ writing skills by
expressing themselves and building their own points of view, based on a set of given short
stories about important women in society in the EFL class. In this way, language will be not
only the end but also the means of the learning process in the classroom.
Vision of Learning
In our research project, learning was seen as a situated practice. According to this
Lave (1988), affirms that “learning is a function of the activity, context and culture in which
it occurs”. In this process, social interaction becomes an important component since learners
become involved in a “community of practice” which embodies certain beliefs and behaviors
to be acquired” and in the process, students become more active and engaged within the
culture and their own process.
Other researchers have further developed the theory of situated learning. Brown,
Collins & Duguid (1989) emphasized the idea that "Cognitive apprenticeship supports
learning in a domain by enabling students to acquire, develop and use cognitive tools in
authentic domain activity”. In this case, the learning process occurs both outside and inside
the school, and “it advances through collaborative social interaction and the social
construction of knowledge." Brown (1989). This is, precisely, the process we aimed to
develop; a learning process in which the students could connect the knowledge with their
own lives and their own realities, both inside and outside the classroom; to grow up not only
academically but personally by using the elements given in their contexts.
Vision of Classroom
For the purposes of our research, the classroom concept we based on was Lier’s, in
which he affirms that a classroom is the formal context where the action occurs, as part of a
formal establishment which is, in this case, the Liceo Femenino Mercedes Nariño and where
“what is said and done is influenced by what happened before, and influences what happens
next” Lier (1988, p 9). According to this, a classroom is a place in which the learning process
starts, but does not end, since the learning process must be linked to the general aspects of the
students’ lives, and whose characteristics are being supplemental, complementary,
facilitating, and consolidating. Lier (1988, p 20).
In this context, the teacher may empower children to develop their aptitudes and
attitudes by using cognitive work, aspects that are not only developed in the classroom, but
also applied in the students’ contexts and lives. Taking into account Lier’s theory, the aim of
this research was to develop students’ aptitudes, in this case, their writing skills by means of
the use of women’s life stories as models, the written reproduction of their personal
expressions and the construction of their interpretations, in this case; their attitudes.
Instructional Design
This instructional design corresponds to the implementation proposal created with the
aim of helping students to enhance their writing skills through the use of real women’s life
stories. In order to carry out this project, three cycles were created and developed during the
second semester of 2017 and the first semester of 2018. Throughout the semesters, the real
women’s life stories were used as a model (Hyland, 2004) to guide the students to write about
their own lives; by reading Policarpa and Frida’s stories the students discovered the personal
narrative (Bastian, 2010) and in that way they could talk about their experiences, feelings,
and dreams in the diaries.
The class took place every Tuesday from 8:15 until 9:15, every session was
organized in lesson plans, and each lesson was developed in fifty minutes in which diverse
vocabulary and grammar forms were taught. (See Annex 9).All cycles and the corresponding
activities were oriented to develop situated writing processes mainly, besides, to generate a
meaningful learning experience through the use of the real women’s life stories.
Table 2. The cycles of the study
CYCLE 1
A woman can
be a heroine!
From August
15th
to September
19th
Subtopics
Vocabulary Objectives
Situated writing
production
- What is a
heroine?
-Discovering
real heroines
“ La Pola”
-What
Characteristic
s make me a
heroine?
-Adjectives for
Physical
Descriptions
and Inner
characteristics.
-Family
members
General
Objective
To discover myself
through a real
heroine.
Situated Writing
Objective
To describe myself
using short
sentences.
Personal Diary:
Starting my own
writing story.
I can be a heroine!
-Who am I?
-How do I see
myself?
-This is my Family
-Where do I
belong?
Data Collections: *Surveys, students’ samples, field notes
CYCLE 2
A woman can
be an artist!
From
September
26th to
November
7th
-Getting to
know Frida's
work
- Frida’s life
-Recognizing
my artistic
skills
-Decoration
materials
-Feelings and
moods
-I like and I
love
-Professions
Content Objective
To explore my
feelings and
recognizing my
skills.
Situated Writing
Objective
To express my
preferences, and
dreams using suitable
vocabulary.
Personal Diary:
I am the master of
my fate!
-Design my diary
cover
-How do I feel
today?
-What do I like to
do?
-What do I want to
be?
Data Collection: Interviews, surveys, students’ samples
CYCLE 3
A woman can
be whatever
she wants!
Gallery
From
February 13th
to March 20th
-Exchanging
personal
diaries
- Discovering
my partners
through their
diaries.
-Present tense
verbs
-Personal
pronouns
-Animals
Language Objective
To recognize English
language as a tool to
communicate
Situated writing
Objective
To encourage myself
to continue with my
personal diary
This is my own
story
- What did I
discover in the
other diaries?
-How does my day
start?
-Who is my best
Friend?
Data Collection: Field notes, students’ samples, surveys, interviews
Table 2 shows the cycles of the study, the time in which they were developed, the
main topics and subtopics, the vocabulary taught, the objectives and the situated writing
activities. In the following paragraphs every cycle will be described in more detail.
To start with, the first cycle was named: “A woman can be a heroine!” During this
cycle, the students discovered that heroines exist in real life and not just in the movies. This
cycle involved the reading of Policarpa Salavarrieta’s story and the beginning of the diary
writing; every class was divided in a reading session and a writing production. As long as
students discovered Policarpa’s life they explored grammar forms and they started to write
about themselves using as a model the Policarpa’s story. For this cycle, four lesson plans
were designed: Who am I? How do I see myself, This is my family and Where Do I belong?
In this stage students wrote in their diaries their personal presentations, their qualities, they
mentioned their family members, and some aspects related to their context; in that way they
were able to identify themselves with a real heroine. The main objective in this cycle was the
students self -discovery inspired by Policarpa’s life story.
Then, the second cycle called “A woman can be an artist” was oriented to students’
exploration of their feelings and skills, in this cycle the students also used the real women’s
life stories as a learning tool to shape their own texts. It was guided by Frida’s life, and they
further developed their reading and writing level in the classes, as was done in the previous
cycle; this stage was directed by the following lesson plans: Design my diary cover, How do
I feel today? What do I like to do? and What do I want to be? In this cycle the students
learned how to express their mood, their preferences and what they want to be, and all was
registered in their diaries, they explored also their artistic facet designing the diary cover
decoration.
Finally, the third cycle was related with the student’s exchange of diaries. It was
named “A woman can be whatever she wants”. It was guided by three lesson plans: What did
I discover in the other diaries? How does my day start? and Who is my best Friend? In this
stage, the students explored their partners’ diaries, discovering different dreams and ways of
being. In this cycle the students continued writing, but on this occasion we took into account
the suggestions made by the girls in one of the surveys (See annex 5) As a result some topics
such as daily routine, friends and pets were selected to inspire students to continue with the
diary writing. This cycle involved also the creation of a “Gallery” to join the two groups of
girls and present the diaries created during the project, this, with the aim of giving students a
moment to share their perceptions and experiences throughout the writing process. The main
objective in this cycle was to encourage students to use English to tell their own story.
It is important to mention that the last cycle was made partially, due to the fact that
our student groups were modified because there was a grade transition (we start with third
grade and we finished with fourth grade) and new students arrived in 2018. So we worked
hard to make a review in order to level the new students and try to continue with the normal
process, but it was not possible to finish with this stage as was planned due to the time.
In this chapter, we explained our visions of curriculum, vision of language, vision of
learning and vision of classroom as well as our instructional design and the phases that took
place during our pedagogical intervention; likewise, their characteristics and objectives
according to our theoretical framework. In chapter number five, we will present the analysis
of the data collected during the implementation of our pedagogical intervention, along with
the findings that emerged from that analysis.
CHAPTER V
DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
This chapter will explain the procedures followed to analyze the data collected
throughout our research project, and the different findings that emerged from this process.
Firstly, the approach used to analyze the data will be explained, secondly, the description of
the procedures employed to analyze data and finally, the categories arose in the analysis
process with the support of the collected data.
Procedures for Data Analysis
To carry out the analysis, we used the Grounded theory, which consist in building the
theory from the rigorous analysis of the data gathered (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). It allowed us
to identify different patterns and topics among the data, then, based on the discovery made,
we proposed some categories. Following the principles of this approach, we worked
inductively, as all the findings arose directly from data collected, in other words, we draw
conclusions through the interaction with evidences (Johnson and Christensen, 2004). Finally,
to obtain confidence on the findings we used the triangulation method, which consisted of
contrasting and confirming information by using data from different sources such as surveys,
field notes, interviews and diaries (Pierce, 2007)
On the other hand, having in mind that the objectives in our research aimed to explore
and describe the role that a set of activities based on women’s life stories had in the
development of students’ writing skills (understanding writing as a situated practice), we
adopted the emic perspective. Bearing in mind what Burns (2010) affirms; emic perspective
consists of taking into account the “data from the perspective of people closely involved in
the research context” (p. 107). It means from the participants, in our case, to have a clear
understanding on the perspective, data were took from our students mainly, and from us as
teachers-researchers, since we were participants and observers throughout the process.
During the process of data collection, organization, and selection, we created three
folders in order to classify the instruments used. The folders were named according to the
instrument, date and cycle proposed during the instructional design; each folder corresponded
to the surveys and artifacts used; as for the field notes and recordings of interviews, we
transcribed and saved them in a computer. As time went by, all the data was scanned and
stored in the computer into different files to avoid any loss of evidence and to facilitate the
analysis (Patton, 2002). Also, it is important to mention that data was uploaded onto Google
Drive and shared between the teachers-researchers in order to have a complete outlook of the
investigation.
As starting point, the data analysis procedure was developed according to Taylor and
Renner (2003) who propose a series of steps to analyze qualitative data: Get to know your
data, Focus the analysis, Categorize information, identify some patterns and connections
within and between the categories, and finally, Interpretation- bringing it all together.
Accordingly with the first step we collected interviews, field notes, surveys, and artifacts
from the two groups involved, and after scanning it we checked it scrupulously; we read and
reviewed it trying to find some key words and patterns, and also evaluating the quality of the
data. During the process we also wrote some comments on the files to try to establish some
relationships.
Continuing, we examined the research questions that we had formulated to guide our
study, in that way we focused the analysis and again read carefully while we were naming,
grouping, and finding relationships among data; classifying the information allowed us to
identify some categories and through the analysis of them we discovered some possible
subcategories. Finally, the entire process guided us towards the data interpretation. It is
important to mention that our data analysis involved students of two third grade groups,
which were gathered due to the similarity of their population, this aspect made the data
analysis process an interesting experience.
Categories of Analysis
Keeping in mind our research objectives, this study proposed to describe the impact of
real women’s life stories, to enhance situated writing processes in an EFL third grade
classroom, the question that guided this study was the basis to create the research objectives
and from there, the different categories and subcategories of the analysis. In the following
figure the categories and subcategories will be displayed.
Figure 1. Categories and subcategories emerging from data analysis
According to the previous figure, for the first research objective ‘To recognize the
role of a set of activities based on women’s life stories in the development of writing skills in
an EFL class’ two categories emerged; the first one, Real women’s life stories as a learning
tool in an EFL classroom, whose subcategories are: Providing meaningful learning through
Real women’s life stories and Writing skills Improvement trough Real Women’s life stories;
and the second category, which is Empowering students through the reading and writing of
women’s life stories and whose subcategories are: Discovering real heroines to create my
own path and Diary creation as a means of self-expression.
Regarding the second research objective: ‘To analyze students’ responses to the use of
women’s life stories following a genre based approach in an EFL class, one analysis category
arose: Empowering students through the reading and writing of women’s life stories. From
this category two subcategories emerged: Discovering real heroines to create my own path
and Feeling support of women’s life stories when discovering myself through writing. Finally,
related to the third research objective: ‘To identify the factors that influence students’ situated
writing performance when women’s life stories following a genre based approach are
implemented’ one category emerged: Factors that influenced students’ situated writing
performance, whose subcategories were: Authentic material to motivate students to write,
Having a model facilitates students’ writing, Students' writing difficulties and Providing a
context to students' situated writing. The following paragraphs will provide a more detailed
explanation of each category and subcategory on the basis of the collected data along our
research process.
Category 1: Real women’s life stories as a learning tool in an EFL classroom
This category refers to the importance of the use of real women’s life stories as a
suitable tool for learning English as a Foreign Language and achieving students’ situated
writing practices in a significant way. Taking into account that students’ learning has to be
based on their contexts, their cultural, social and personal aspects (MEN, 2006), data
demonstrated that by means of the use of real women’s life stories in the classroom, students
learned new vocabulary, improved their pronunciation, acquired self-confidence when
reading and speaking in English, learned from history and foremost, they improved their
writing performance in a meaningful way since the women’s life stories were fundamental to
motivate students to write about themselves; their own lives, contexts and dreams, promoting
the development of imagination and the discovering of the world (Eagleton, 1993). Based on
the above mentioned, from this category emerged two subcategories: Providing meaningful
learning through Real women’s life stories and Situated writing skills Improvement through
Real Women’s life stories.
Providing meaningful learning through Real women’s life stories. By using real
women’s life stories in EFL classroom we aimed to connect students’ realities, contexts and
likes to the learning of the English language, creating a significant experience in the
classroom (Chala and Chapetón, 2012). Data demonstrated that the use of women’s life
stories in the classroom is significant and important to learn English in a context and to
motivate students to learn new vocabulary, history, to recognize their own contexts, to write
about themselves and to empower them by means of the use of a new learning tool for them.
S1: “Me encantó leer porque nunca habíamos leído”.
S13: “Cuando aprendemos nuevas cosas y leemos y aprendemos a pronunciarlas”
S27: “Que aprendimos a decir que cosas no y qué cosas sí nos gustan y de la familia”
(Third survey. November 21, 2017)
The previous extracts are samples of a survey conducted with the students in which
they expressed what they liked the most about using and reading the stories in the classroom
by answering the question “What have you liked the most from the English class?” most of
the students’ answers indicated that they enjoyed learning through the stories since it was
new for them and they could learn different aspects such as vocabulary, pronunciation and
history, according to Koteslnik, M. et al. (2015), children find it more meaningful to learn
about history when it is connected to their own lives, families and communities.
S4: “Es bonito y deja enseñanza de que las mujeres tenemos derechos”
S24: “A mí me gusta porque aprendo historia en inglés”
S13: “Me gusta que Policarpa arriesgó su vida porque era una mujer muy valiente, como yo”
(Final students’ interview. 306-304. March 6, 2018).
As revealed on the preceding data fragments from the final interview applied,
concerning the question “What have you liked the most about the stories?” students gave positive
responses to the reading of the women’s stories since they enjoyed learning about the story of
a powerful and important woman in history and they recognized the importance of doing it in
English, which makes the learning of the foreign language more significant and motivating in
order to understand the stories they were reading.
2 We started to
3 read, first, Policarpa’s book and to recognize the
4 members of her family; the girls were absolutely
5 happy when they saw that Policarpa had a big family
6 as many of them do and started to ask questions
7 about their relatives’. S1: “Teacher, ¿Qué es sister?”
8 me: “Hermana” S1: “I have… three sisters”
9 S13: “Teacher, ¿Qué es grandmother?” (Then they all
10 started to ask at the same time).
(Field notes, grade 304. August 29, lines 2-10 Descriptions)
The previous data, taken from the description of a teacher-researcher’s class field
note, established that students connected the contents from the books’ stories to their own
contexts and realities since they wanted to know more vocabulary about the topic to describe
their own realities, which, according to Kosteslnik, M. et al. (2015), makes the learning
significant since they were associating what they learned in class to their personal contexts;
here then, is where the learning process makes sense.
“S1: A mí me gustó leer sobre Policarpa y lo que le gustaba. A mí me gustaría escribir sobre
lo que me gusta, lo que hago y lo que amo”
S9: “A mí me gusta escribir mis secretos, como los secretos de policarpa porque era espía y
ellos no sabían”
S18: “Escribir de mi familia, como la familia de mi papá porque yo le digo cosas a mis papás
y se ponen muy contentos, por eso me gusta”.
(Third survey. November 21, 2017)
As revealed by the previous data samples taken from a survey in which the students
answered the question “What have you liked the most from the diary?”, most of the students
gave positive answers to the use of women’s stories in the classroom since they were, not
only improving their writing skills, but also exercising some other skills in order to achieve
the understanding of the books’ stories, to connect the women’s stories to their contexts and
to write about their own stories on a diary by using the books as a model, (Hyland, 2004)
which evidences, once more, the utility of women’s life stories in the EFL classroom as a
meaningful learning tool.
Situated writing skills Improvement trough Real Women’s life stories. According
to UNESCO (2013) women literacy is a tool which encourage students to think, create and
reflect by producing their own texts. Data revealed that the students enhanced their writing
competence by means of the use of a particular text as a writing model (Hyland, 2004) for
them to reflect their own life stories and to connect their realities to their social and cultural
contexts by means of the writing exercise in the EFL classroom (Chala and Chapetón, 2012).
Although along the project the students’ writing exercise was mainly developed in a diary
which allowed the students to perform a personal and reflective situated writing process
(Cano, 1987), different data instruments such as surveys, field notes and diaries also
demonstrated the students’ progress in terms of writing.
60 I think we are achieving
61 our goal of getting the students closer to their
62 contexts, realities and we are improving their
63 writing skills since they didn’t take long when
64 writing the diary.
Field notes, grade 304. September 5, lines 60-64 Reflections)
On the preceding data extracts, taken from the reflections of a teacher-researcher’s
class field note after writing in the diaries about the family. Data demonstrated that at this
point of the class the students were improving their writing, since they did not take too long
to follow the instructions and to continue their stories in their diaries. It is necessary to
highlight that the improvement of the students’ writing skills has a direct relation with the
meaningfulness of the contents for the children since the topic was, in this case, connected to
their realities which is ‘The family’ (Kosteslnik, M. et al. 2015) and guided by the ‘heroines’
written stories (Barton and Hamilton, 2000), which allowed them to perform in other free
writing activities.
S12:” My name is (nombre de la estudiante), I am nine years old and I live in Restrepo, in
Rafael Uribe. I love animals, I am happy, I am intelligent”
S1:” My name is (nombre de la estudiante) Y am eight. I like color red, blue and purple. I am
happy and beautiful”
S24: “My name is (nombre de la estudiante). I’m happy and beautiful. I play soccer, I don’t
like to sleep so much”
(Final survey. December 5, 2017)
The data extracts above show students’ responses to a survey applied twice; at the
beginning and at the end of the project in which one of the instructions was “Introduce
yourself”, it was possible to evidence that the students improved their writing skills
satisfactorily by the end of the project, considering that at the beginning of our research
project they were unable to write a complete sentence in English (See annex 4). The surveys
were selected randomly and the comparison was carried out by using the same students’
answers to make the analysis more reliable and valid (Patton, 2002).
Student’s diaries 304-306, 2018.
The previous artifacts extracts correspond to the diary the students wrote along the
project development. As stated previously, the students at the beginning of the research were
not able to produce any type of texts, since they had not exercised this skill in the English
class. Data demonstrated -as evidenced in the previous artifacts- that the students, by the end
of the project were able to produce texts to express themselves, to talk about their realities
and to share their dreams and hopes.
4 S10: “Pues, en este momento yo considero que escribo un cinco porque, pues, ya he
5.aprendido más, con el diario me ha ayudado a perfeccionar la escritura en inglés y pues,
6.hablar de mi misma y a expresarme en él”.
4. S1: “Pues, yo me considero cinco, pues, porque he aprendido mucho con el diario, sobre mi
5.familia, a perfeccionar la escritura, el vocabulario, la pronunciación, eso”.
6. S15: “Como ya he aprendido más, me pongo un cuatro. (…) porque, cuando me sentaba a
7.escribir en inglés en el diario, aprendía vocabulario y también cuando escuchaba música en
8.inglés”.
Final students’ interview. 306-304. March 6, 2018).
The data pieces above revealed students’ answers to the interview applied at the
beginning and at the end of the research which demonstrated that students were, initially,
conscious of their lack of writing and their need of exercising this skill in the EFL classroom
(see annex 7). At the end of the project, when, researchers asked them to grade their own
writing, the students gave themselves five’s and four’s and affirmed that they improved their
writing skills, learned vocabulary, pronunciation and expressed themselves, this was thanks
to the use of the diary as a means of self-expression (Picard, 2006). This data analysis shows
that students improved satisfactorily their writing skills by means of the use of women’s life
stories as a model to encourage students to write, in this case, about themselves in a situated
instrument which is the diary (Chala and Chapeton, 2012).
Category 2: Empowering students through the reading and writing of women’s life
stories
This category denotes the usefulness of women’s life stories in the EFL classroom
when working on the students’ capacities and expectations, responding to the objectives of
the school’s PEI which are to educate reflective, conscious, and autonomous girls (Lifemena,
2015). Data demonstrated that women’s life stories is a significant tool when supporting
women in learning, since it responded to their situations and involve them in determining a
relevant and rewarding learning experience, through a didactic, technical, pre-prescribed
approach to literacy (UNESCO, 2013).
According to the Cambridge dictionary (2017), life stories are stories based on “real
rather than imaginary events which can be used as literary models” (Hyland ,2004) in this
case, the writing performance occurs by means of a situated exercise which corresponds to
the description of the students’ lives, contexts and realities; the way they perceive the world;
their reflections and their dreams in a diary (Picard, 2006). Based on the aforementioned, two
subcategories emerged from this category: discovering real heroines to create my own path
and diary creation as a means of self-expression.
Discovering real heroines to create my own path. Data demonstrated that real
women’s life stories allowed students, not only to learn English as a Foreign Language in the
classroom, but also to understand and question. According to UNESCO (2013), the vision of
the women in society and in their communities, the suppression they experienced, and to
empower and challenge themselves to transform it through a meaningful learning experience
(UNESCO, 2013, p.12).
24 Finally the teacher proposes a
25 question related with the tale,
26 What are you useful for? A girl says “I am good at
27 doing my bed”, another says “I am good at doing
28 chores”, then the teacher said laughing,
29 “I will hire some of you to help me out “
(Field notes, grade 306. April 18, 2017. Lines 24-28 Descriptions)
The data sample above is a teacher-researcher’ class field note in which she described
and reflected (see annex 2) about the students’ vision of the women’s role in society, led by
the teacher’s class topic, there was a lack of recognition of the feminine role, since students
considered themselves useful at doing activities related to housekeeping such as; making the
bed or any other household chores, but did not recognize themselves as, reflexive,
autonomous or transforming women in their communities and in their society (Lifemena,
2015).
S5. 14:”Del diario me ha gustado que aprendemos que nosotras las mujeres no es como
dicen, que no 15.servimos pa' nada que sólo servimos pa' la casa. Para arreglar; no, nosotras
también 16.podemos trabajar, podemos ayudar a los hombres en el trabajo y no sólo, pues,
estar en la 17.casa, como ellos dicen, que nosotras no hacemos nada; cocinar y ya”.
S2. 14.”He aprendido sobre mi país, que las mujeres servimos para mucho, podemos
hacer 15.más que los hombres; nosotras podemos hacer muchas cosas en un sólo momento,
somos 16.muy buenas, y que yo puedo ser lo que yo quiera”.
S18. 14.”: Que las mujeres son más valiosas que el oro y que lo que nos ha dado Dios y
que 15.podemos hacer más cosas que lo que los demás dicen porque todas somos súper
heroínas, 16.y si yo quiero ser doctora, voy a ser doctora”.
(Final students’ interview. 306-304. March 6, 2018).
The preceding data extracts were taken from an interview applied to the students at
the end of the project in which they were asked about their experiences with Policarpa and
Frida’s stories and the diaries. They were asked: “What did you learn about Policarpa and
Frida’s stories?” Taking into account that at the beginning of the project students related their
strengths to the housekeeping role of a woman (see annex 7), as is evidenced in the
previously described class field note, in the final interview when the previous question was
posed, the students answered that they could do more than just household chores and that
they as women are more than what society assumes.
S10: “I am intelligent, young, beautiful, strong woman”
S15: “I am lovely and intelligent, strong. I am a heroine”
S20: “I’m happy, I’m strong, I’m brave, I’m honest heroine”.
(Final survey. 304-306. December 5, 2017.)
As demonstrated in the data samples above, by the end of the project most of the
students answered to the instruction “Write two personal adjectives” in most cases, that they
were strong and agreed upon the idea that they were ‘heroines’ since they were able to do
whatever they wanted to do, with no gender differences. The analyzed data revealed that
along the research project development the women’s life stories changed students’
perspectives about women, and that they created a new mindset about themselves and their
importance in their communities and society, as well as they developed their personalities,
their imagination, their critical and cultural sense and created their own paths (Eagleton,
1993).
Diary creation as a means of self-expression. According to Cano (1987), the diary
corresponds to a literary means of expression which allows the students to perform a situated
writing process, to narrate their relation with the world, their realities and to express and
confess their feelings and inner thoughts (Chala and Chapetón, 2012). Data demonstrated, as
mentioned before, that the students got to express, to discover and to place themselves in the
world, to create their own path and to be aware that they belonged to a community by means
of the diary writing exercise.
10 S1:-“Teacher, ¿Cómo se dice
11 padrastro?”S21: -“Teacher, ¿Cómo se dice hermanito?”,
12 and so on. As a curious fact, the most distracted girls
13 were attached to the book and asked questions about
14 the names of their relatives.
(Field notes, 304.September 5, 2017.lines 10-14. Description)
As evidenced in the previous data fragments, the data analyzed showed that the
students enjoyed the writing of their diaries since it was connected to their realities and
allowed them to describe their relation to the world (Picard, 2006). The selected topic for the
class was, in this case; “the family” and, as the fragments from the field note shows, the girl
were very enthusiastic when writing about their own families and sharing this with the rest of
the class. The students talked about their families with their classmates, compared them and
even expressed the wishes and dreams they have as a family.
S33: “Que está mi familia y aprendo muchas cosas de escribir cómo es mi vida, lo que me gusta y
lo que quiero en mi futuro, cuando sea grande”.
S30: “Escribir sobre mi familia y de mi hermanita que se murió y sobre cosas que me gustan. Mis
sueños, mis cualidades, mis aventuras y escribir en inglés”.
S40: “Mi vida, mi familia, mi vida con mis compañeras, cuando tenga mi esposo y mis hijos y
trabaje“.
(Third survey. 304,306. November 21, 2017)
The previous data extracts correspond to the third survey applied in which students
answered the question “What did you like the most from the diary?” Students valued the role
of the diary when writing about their families since this is their closest context -as described
in the previous data analysis-, about their dreams, lives, friends and even difficult situations.
This is, actually, the relevance of the diary since it reflects directly the writer’s psychology
and allows them to express and confess their feelings and inner thoughts (Cano, 1987)
Students’ diaries. 304-306, 2018.
In the previous data samples, taken from three different diaries, it is possible to
evidence that the diary -as mentioned before- worked as a means of self-expression for the
students since they described their contexts and realities, talked about their preferences and
dreams for the future by a situated writing exercise. This allowed the students to confess their
feelings, inner thoughts, to discover themselves and to create their own path (Cano, 1987).
Category 3: Analyzing student responses to the use of genre based approach to develop
situated writing skills
This category refers to how students reacted to the use of personal narratives while they
develop their own situated writing practices (Chala and Chapeton, 2012). The analysis of data
showed that students felt enthusiastic and at the same time they improved their writing skills
when they talk about themselves having as a support the real women's lives stories. On the
basis of the above, from this category emerged two subcategories: Enthusiasm and
improvement when writing about myself, and Feeling support when writing, having as a
model real women’s life stories.
Enthusiasm and improvement when writing about myself. According to the data, the
use of the genre based approach was appropriate to awake students enthusiasm towards
writing, because they discovered on the fanzines the personal narration as an element to talk
about themselves (Bastian, 2010), so women’s life stories were key to promote situated
writing practices among students since they were able to connect their realities to English
learning through diary writing.
Following these ideas, genre based approach in keeping with Hyland (2004) resulted
in motivating students since they understood that writing was a useful instrument to
communicate. By using personal narrations it was found that students felt enthusiasm when
writing and additionally they improved their writing skills. Data demonstrated that students
loved to write about their lives, their feelings and their dreams, in their diaries, connecting
their realities to the writing process (Chala and Chapetón, 2012)
S 38: 28. “Lo que más me gustó del diario fue que nos podemos expresar en inglés”
S 45: 21. “Que es sobre mi”
S 63: 25. “Escribir como soy en inglés y cosas que me gustan”
(Final students’ interview. 306-304, March 6, 2018).
The previous extracts are samples from the final interview in which the students
answered the question “What was the best thing about the diary?” Students’ responses
showed that they enjoyed to write about themselves while they used English, besides, the
following fragments evidence that students improved their writing skills as they felt
motivated to write about themselves.
53 I didn’t had to tell them to start writing;
54 they could not wait for doing it, they
55 seemed very happy at writing and
56 drawing about their own family members;
57 today the class was theirs, they made the class
58 autonomously, using the teacher as a medium
59 to know vocabulary, but they knew what they
60 had to do and they wanted to do so, spending
61 less time than usual writing the diary texts.
(Field notes, 304.September 5, 2017.lines 53-61 Description)
As revealed in the selected data -one more time- student felt happy writing about their
own lives, also, it showed that students improved the writing skills as they spent less time
writing, Which, proved that the students’ language proficiency by using personal narrative;
they felt confident writing about topics that they knew well, in this particular case when they
wrote about their family members (Hyland, 2004).The use of personal narrative was a
motivating element as students felt committed to the writing process.
S 41: “Lo que me acuerdo: dog, gat”
S 49: “Penzil, lapiz”
S60: “ ”
(Second survey. August 15, 2017)
(Students’ diaries. Students’ descriptions. 304-306, 2018.)
The preceding data corresponds to the second survey and to the diaries that were
created through the process, samples were selected at random and the comparison was made
by using the same students’ responses to make the analysis reliable (Patton, 2002). In the
initial survey the students were asked to pen the words or sentences that they knew to write in
English; data revealed that at the beginning students did not write much, they misspelled the
words or either they did not write any word. During the process, it was possible to see not
only the improvement of their writing skills, but also the students’ development of situated
writing practices (Chala and Chapetón, 2012) through diary writing.
Feeling support when writing having as a model real women's life stories. Data
evidenced that students learned and felt inspiration by using real women's life stories. These
stories were an important guide in students writing processes as they helped the girls in the
discovery of grammar forms, the exploration of the English language, and the connection
with the context (Hyland, 2004). Real women's life stories played a supportive role in the
situated writing process, since students expressed that they found helpful, some sentences
presented in the stories to write their own, in that sense, real women’s life stories became in a
key element backing the diary writing as shown here:
S 5: 19. “Sí porque aprendí cómo se escribe en donde nací”
S 2: 23. “Sí porque aprendí cosas de Colombia y las escribí en mi diario”
S 18: 15. “Si porque me enseñaron que para decir mi nombre hay 2 formas I am y
my name is”
(Final students’ interview. 306-304. March 6, 2018.)
The last fragments belong to the final interview done with some of the girls from both
grades, the students answered the question “Were Policarpa and Frida's stories helpful in the
writing process of your diary”? And as was shown before the students said that they used the
content found inside the stories to write about themselves, understanding writing as a tool to
play with (Ahn, 2012) and remarking that real women's life stories were fruitful in the
learning writing process.
S 12: “Yo escribí mi presentación como Policarpa y la familia”
S 44: “Lo que yo quiero ser cuando grande”
S 55: “Mis cualidades y mis gustos”
(Third survey. November 21, 2017)
The earlier pieces correspond to the third survey in which the following question was
formulated: What topics from Policarpa and Frida’s' stories did you use to write about your
life in your diary? The students’ responses showed again the idea of real women’s life stories
and how they were relevant in giving students inspiration at the moment of writing, most of
them took as an example different themes developed in the stories to write about their own
lives, transforming writing and reading in a situated practice (Barton and Hamilton, 2000)
36 I notice the students used the Frida’s story to write some sentences
37 on their dairy: some of them asked me about the meaning of
38 words that appeared in the story and then they wrote down
39 the words on their diaries.
(Field notes, 306. October 3, 2017.lines 36-39, Description)
Likewise, data revealed that the real women's life stories were vital to students
discovering how to write using English; these stories aided the girls to feel more confidence
when they wrote on their diaries. As was demonstrated, genre based approach was essential
in the language exploration, in development of writing skills, and in the awareness of
linguistic forms (Ahn, 2012). Consequently, having these stories as a guide allowed students
to identify how language works in a concrete text, but also to help students recognize
language as an instrument that could be modified, the real women’s life stories were used as a
model in the process of diary writing as the girls made use of the personal narrative to shape
their own texts (Hyland, 2004).
Category 4: Factors that influenced students' situated writing performance
This category deals with the factors that affected somehow the students writing
processes: The positive impact of the authentic material, and the lack of language skills
among the students. The data pointed out that the use of real women's life stories were
significant to stimulate students to write on their diaries about themselves, and at the same
time data showed that students' low language proficiency prolonged their English writing
learning.
Authentic material to motivate students to write. Policarpa Salavarrieta and Frida
Kahlo's fanzines were key elements to inspire girls to make their own creations, as a literary
element the stories built a bridge between students realities and the real women's life
narrations (Hyland, 2004); as data proved, the girls felt inspired from some parts of the
fanzines and they just reflected that on some pages of their personal diaries, the stories and
the drawings helped students through the diary writing process.
Students’ diaries Vs. Policarpa and Frida's stories 304-306, 2018.
The previous pieces of information showed how the material stimulated students to
write about themselves, proving that the fanzines were beneficial for students through the
learning process. The material not only helped students with grammar components but also it
aided in the discovering of self-expression (Bastian, 2010)
47 The students loved the story because
48 they were attentive to the reading, they were
49 following every single page, they asked questions
50 about vocabulary (to write on their diaries) and
51 they gave their opinions about the story. At the
52 end of the session I asked to the students to give
53 me their Frida' fanzine because I wanted
54 to check the way they decorated it with the recycled
55 materials, immediately they asked me: “when you will
56 give us back the story?”
(Field notes, grade 306. October 24, 2017. Lines 47-56 Descriptions)
The preceding extracts from the field notes demonstrated that the material was
motivating for students, they really loved it, and it was not just helpful in the development of
writing skills. It was a tool to capture students' attention in the sessions, this literary
component rekindled students’ curiosity towards learning. Literature, following Eagleton
(1983) is a learning tool that awakens the imagination and the critical sense; through the
usage of Policarpa Salavarrieta and Frida Kahlo’s stories, as the data revealed, students felt
motivated to express their opinions and felt interest in the development of their writing skills.
As was shown authentic material motivated the students to write, to think, and to create.
Low language proficiency of students. Data revealed that a relevant aspect that
influenced students’ EFL performance was their low level of English. Although they have
had English classes in the previous grades, the most important grammatical aspects,
vocabulary, pronunciation, etc., were unfamiliar to them and they were not able to describe,
talk or write about their closest contexts (MEN, 2016). So, at the beginning of the project,
they still used their native language, again, with a very poor performance.
S38: “My neim is (nombre de la estudiante). Yo meyamo (nombre de la estudiante).”
S15:”Mainechmis (nombre de la estudiante), vibo en la gloria, tego nane años, mi segre es O+.
acabo de perder un ermanito”.
S29:”Namber: (nombre de la estudiante), yo tengo 9 años, yo bivo en Bochica”.
(Second survey. August 29, 2017)
According to the MEN’s document1, in the basic learning rights for third graders, the
student should be able to answer verbally and non-verbally to questions about their
1 (2016) Mallas de aprendizaje de inglés para transición a 5º de primaria. Ministerio de Educación
Nacional.
environment and to describe by short and simple texts topics such as families and contexts.
(MEN, 2016). The previous data fragments demonstrated that the students’ presented a lack
of knowledge about grammatical structures, both in English and their native language, mainly
in the written exercise since they wrote the words in the way that they pronounced them or
related the English words to the Spanish ones, this, with no spelling consciousness neither in
Spanish, nor in English.
S26: “I am (nombre de la estudiante) nasi en Bogota en que año en 2006 tengo 5 hermanos y
con migo somos 6 en total tambien vivo con mis dos madres estudio por la mañana los lunes
y miercoles boy taekwondo”
S12: “My barrio is San José, the flag of colombia is iellow, blue, reit”
S10: “Mi name is (nombre de la estudiante). feliz, fuerte, linda, hermosa, joven, honesta”.
(Students’ diaries 304-306, 2017.)
The previous data segments proved, as stated before, that students related the English
language to the Spanish. Data also demonstrated the lack of vocabulary and knowledge of the
grammatical English rules since, whenever they did not know how to state something in
English, they relied on their native language. Which made achieving of project’s goals more
difficult since it was necessary to work on the English vocabulary, pronunciation, structures,
and grammatical aspects. First, for them to be able to understand the stories they were
reading and later to start producing their own texts in the diary, as a result, those activities
demanded extra time and effort, delaying the development of the project phases. The
previous showed that the students’ necessity of reinforcing the grammatical aspects of the
English language as well as the learning of vocabulary that allowed them to describe verbally
or nonverbally; objects, places, people, and communities by using simple sentences (MEN,
2016).
Chapter five presented the analysis of the data collected along the different phases of
the research project, as well as the final findings. The upcoming chapter will present the
conclusions, limitations, implications and the further research that emerged from the data
analysis and our pedagogical intervention.
CHAPTER VI
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
This chapter will present the conclusions that emerged from data analysis, the
implications this research study had towards education by means of English language
teaching through life stories, the institution where this research project was held, and the
participants involved in it; finally, the limitations that arose during the process of carrying out
our project and particular considerations for further research will be described.
Conclusions
In relation to the general question of this project which aimed to describe the impact
of real women’s life stories, to enhance situated writing processes in an EFL third grade
classroom, at Liceo Femenino Mercedes Nariño, three specific objectives were proposed:
1. To recognize the role of a set of activities based on women’s life stories in the
development of writing skills in an EFL class.
2. To analyze students’ responses to the use of women’s life stories following a genre
based approach in an EFL class.
3. To identify the factors that influence students’ situated writing performance when
women’s life stories following a genre based approach are implemented.
In response to the first objective, data showed that real women’s life stories had an
important role in the development of situated writing skills, as they were used as an
instrument to guide the writing process and inspired students to write about themselves. Data
showed that the stories were a useful learning tool in the EFL class, since they helped
students to learn vocabulary and history, to improve their pronunciation, and their writing
performance in a significant way.
According to the findings of the study, the employment of real women’s life stories
was also important to empower girls and change their perspective in regards to the women’s
position in society; the students discovered themselves powerful and plain of different
qualities inspired by the real women’s life stories, as well as they connected the writing
process to their realities by means of the creation of the diary, building their own story.
With regards to the second objective, data demonstrated that the use of real women’s
life stories was important to students discovering the personal narrative because they found a
tool that helped them to talk about themselves. The personal narrative was a motivating
element in the development of situated writing skills, since students felt enthusiastic writing
about their lives, their likes, and their expectations, in that way they gained writing
proficiency spending less time at writing and improving their spelling . On the other hand,
data showed that students felt support using the women’s life stories as a model to guide their
own writing process as they discover different linguistic forms to shape their own texts.
Finally, concerning the last objective that is related to the factors that influenced
students writing performance, two factors were found: authentic material as a key to
encourage students to write, and students’ low language proficiency as a barrier in the writing
process.
Firstly, dada revealed that authentic material was important to stimulate students’
imagination and writing development; Policarpa and Frida’s fanzines were helpful in
supporting girls with the grammar components and inspire them to create their diaries, as data
showed, they really loved and used the materials.
Secondly, data displayed that the lack of knowledge about English grammar structures
was an important factor that influenced the students writing performance, it became an
obstacle due to students using their native language to express some ideas, which prolonged
the English learning process and the writing development.
To conclude, throughout the use of real women’s life stories, the students enhanced
their situated writing performance as they found support and motivation in Policarpa and
Frida’s stories, besides, they learned about the basic aspects of pronunciation as well as new
vocabulary; and despite of their low English language level and the implied challenge, they
discovered some grammar forms to express themselves through diary writing. The girls felt
enthusiastic exploring the personal narrative and connecting the learning process to their
realities and lastly, they found inside valuable and became strong women able to create their
own path. In concrete terms, it was possible to make the learning of writing a purposeful and
meaningful experience for the students.
Implications
As expected from the beginning of this research study, there were several implications
that this project generated for the educational community, corresponding to the school, the
students, and for us as teachers-researchers. Those requirements will be explained in the
following paragraphs.
First, for the field of education, this project had several implications. According to the
MEN, education is “un proceso de formación permanente, personal cultural y social que se
fundamenta en una concepción integral de la persona humana, de su dignidad, de sus
derechos y de sus deberes”2;in this regard, several implications arose within the development
of this project since it demanded education to go beyond the structural aspects and to focus
on the deepest elements, that is to say, to concentrate on the students’ needs, their contexts,
and preferences and to work on issues related to the social and the subject of women in the
school. Furthermore, this project also implies the need to rethink educative methodologies
and to work by projects because through this way it is possible to go deeper into the class’
topics and to connect the students’ realities to the classes’ goals.
Secondly, related to the implications for the school; referring to the Liceo Femenino
Mercedes Nariño, this project also implied diverse pedagogical challenges. First, the
recognition of the importance of using real women’s texts in the classroom to approach the
students’ realities, contexts and preferences to the school goals, not only when improving
students’ writing skills, but also when working on any educational aspect, since this is a
feminine institution. It also implies teachers to reconsider their educative performances by
participating and changing the use of the classic notebook and guides, for the use of authentic
material that better approximates the student’s needs, preferences and educative context.
Finally, this project also implies the need to connect the class material with the institutional
objectives, the curriculum and the students’ needs and contexts, since the teaching model the
school proposes is based, precisely, on the aforementioned aspects.
With regards to the implications for the students involved in our research study, this
project implied the use of previous knowledge as well as constant motivation to learn. First,
they had to have a certain English level and to be interested in writing since the end of the
project was the writing process itself. In addition, considering the main constructs of our
study, the use of important historical women’s stories required that the students recognize and
2 Ley 115 de Febrero 8 de 1994. Ministerio de Educación Nacional.
are conscious about history, important figures and specifically the importance of women in
society, in this respect, the development of this project required the girls to be constantly
motivated by the selected figures and the writing of the diary, and, given that students read
and wrote together in the classroom, we needed them to have the ability to work in a team, to
respect each other’s’ points of view, experiences, perspectives and reflections, since every
life story was different, each diary was different.
As to, the implications for us as teacher-researchers and our formative processes and
educative performances, this project represented different implications. First, the need for us
to understand and have a clear perspective on how different components such as: the
students’ context, the institution’s PEI, the English Standards from the MEN, the use of the
genre based approach and the situated writing exercise work in the EFL teaching-learning
process in a feminine institution, as well as the ability to make them converge in the
classroom. Second, the need for us as teachers to analyze and to reflect constantly on our
teaching practice in order to improve our performance to stimulate students’ curiosity
towards learning.
In addition, this research, also demanded from the teacher-researcher, a notion of
teaching English, specifically in third graders and how to improve students’ writing skills by
means of a meaningful and situated writing process, having as a basis the students’ realities
and important real women’s life stories. Related to the material design, taking into account
that this research was based on the creation of authentic material both from the students and
the teachers; this research showed that as teachers-researchers one would have to spend
several hours to design material, to select the information we were going to implement, the
important figures our books were going to be based on, the writing of the books’ scripts and
the design of the images, the book itself and additionally, a considerable amount of time for
checking and correcting the students’ writings, which also demanded a constant motivation
from us. Finally, the reading and the revision of the students’ writings implied that the
teacher be a professional; showing respect for the students’ opinions and the listening
aptitude to take into account the students’ points of view and reflections.
Limitations
Along this research project several limitations arose, the first restraint came from the
implementation of different projects and extra-curricular activities during the English class
timetable, so students missed several classes and we could not advance or we had to review
the previous topics. Additionally, another limitation we faced was the amount of students due
to the fact that we had to monitor 62 girls in all, and we had just one hour a week to advance
in our project and in the classes, which also made the development of the project quite
difficult. Finally, the last aspect we consider a barrier for the development of the project was
the students’ lack of responsibility, since they sometimes forgot to bring the diaries to the
English class, making the writing process more difficult and slow, reason why we sometimes
had to start again, taking up considerable time and effort.
Further Research
This research project aimed to explore and describe the impact of teaching and
improving students’ writing skills in an EFL classroom through women’s life stories into a
feminine institution, taking into account the students’ realities and the school’s context. The
findings that emerged from our research study, evidenced that students enjoyed learning
about historical important women and took their stories as models for them to go beyond, to
recognize the importance of women’s role in society, to consider themselves more important
and valuable and to write their own stories while improving their writing skills. Taking all
this into account and despite the fact that even though we did an intense research, we did not
find any project related to EFL (or any other subject) teaching by means of, not only the use
of real women’s life stories, but also important historical figures. It could be an interesting
matter to explore the impact of teaching in an EFL classroom through the use of life stories
into a coeducational school, as well as teaching students to develop not only their writing, but
also their listening, speaking, and reading skills.
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Annexes
Annex 1: Teacher’s interview
Entrevista Docente
Se realizará una entrevista al docente y se grabará bajo su autorización. Para ello se realizarán las
siguientes preguntas:
(Estas preguntas se realizaron al practicante de inglés, pues, es quien se encarga de estas clases.)
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Personal Researcher:¿En qué área se especializa usted? (título licenciatura)
Teacher: Yo soy estudiante de Licenciatura en Lenguas Extranjeras. Me especializo en el
área de inglés, me gusta mucho enseñarlo, aunque manejo los otros dos componentes muy
bien.
Researcher:¿Cuánto tiempo lleva ejerciendo como profesor-practicante? (experiencia
docente)
Teacher: Como profe llevo un año. El mismo tiempo que he estado con las niñas.
Researcher: ¿Cuánto tiempo lleva en la institución?
Teacher: Un año haciendo mis prácticas.
Información general Researcher: En su opinión, ¿cuáles son las principales necesidades del Colegio Liceo
femenino Mercedes Nariño y de las niñas?
Teacher: Pues, la verdad las niñas tienen muchas necesidades. Sus contextos son
complicados, entonces uno más que profesor debe ser consejero, psicólogo y hasta
policía. Eso en cuanto a las niñas, en cuanto al contexto escolar, pues el colegio está bien
equipado; hay laboratorio, las niñas realizan actividades extracurriculares, el problema
es para conseguir una grabadora, y para ponerles una película, por ejemplo, porque no
hay televisores, pero por ejemplo, si uno necesita copias o impresiones, aquí le ayudan
mucho a uno con eso, y eso es platica que uno se ahorra.
Researcher: ¿Considera que la misión y visión del PEI responden a esas necesidades y
prioridades?
Teacher: En general, sí. A las niñas desde el principio se les está enseñando a ser
autónomas, responsables y curiosas, a investigar, a buscar, a querer saber más siempre.
Entonces sí, igual, se les enseña a reciclar, a cuidar de los animalitos, ¿Si ves que el
rector tiene varios perritos viejitos por todo el colegio? Eso le enseña a las niñas a
cuidar de los animales. Pero lo que sí veo es que en cuanto a inglés o francés, que dice
que tiene énfasis en eso, pues no es mucho, porque ellas sólo ven una hora de inglés
semanal ¿Así qué énfasis puede haber? Y pues, no todos los profesores saben inglés,
entonces, los que no tienen o no quieren practicantes, porque eso a veces también es
molesto, pues tienen que dar las clases y arreglárselas como puedan con “su énfasis”.
Inglés Researcher: ¿Sigue algún plan de estudio?
Teacher: Sí, nosotros nos basamos en el plan de la institución y en el del ministerio para
organizar nuestras clases, pero no es algo tan estricto.
Researcher: ¿Qué actividades hace en clase de inglés?-
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Teacher: Usamos guías, y a ellas les gusta mucho colorear y dibujar, entonces, cuando
mi clase es corta, lo uso, de resto no porque duran toda la clase en eso. Y pues, ellas
repiten mucho, hago que repitan el tema toda la clase para que aprendan, ah, y les gusta
mucho recortar y esas cosas.
Researcher: ¿Qué materiales usa en clase?
Teacher: Guías, dibujos y guías que ellas puedan recortar y pegar en los cuadernos.
Researcher: ¿Qué dinámicas o metodologías aplica en la clase?
Teacher: Con ellas toca ser un poquito estrictos con la disciplina, entonces, controlo
mucho eso. Pero también me gusta hacer la clase afuera, cuando ya les di la parte
teórica, la siguiente clase las llevo al patio y practicamos todo jugando, a ellas les gusta
mucho eso. Ah, y obvio coloreando, les gusta mucho hacer manualidades.
Researcher: ¿Qué tipo de actividades demuestran ser más atractivas para los estudiantes?
Teacher: Lo que te digo, definitivamente colorear y esas cosas de manualidades. Les
encanta.
Grupo Researcher: ¿Cuáles son las fortalezas y debilidades del grupo en inglés?
Teacher: Pues, ellas son juiciosas, hay unas niñas que aprenden muy rápido, otras a las
que parece que no les interesa, y así, pero en general, son bien. Les da muy duro escribir,
casi no lo hacen, lo que sí hacen mucho es la producción oral, canciones y eso, les
encanta. Lo del speaking, pues es muy específico, lo que uno les enseñe, cosa por cosa,
porque si uno les pone a escuchar algo o les dice otra cosa que no saben, se pierden y se
dispersan.
Researcher: ¿Desarrolla un proyecto formativo con el grupo?
Teacher: No, la verdad no.
Researcher: ¿Cuál es el problema, la necesidad, prioridad o expectativa más importante
del grupo en esta materia?
Teacher: La necesidad, pues el tiempo. Una hora semanal no es suficiente para cumplir
con el énfasis que el colegio propone en su plan, es imposible.
Researcher: ¿Qué dificultades o problemas se hacen evidentes en el aula?
Teacher: Tal vez la indisciplina, hay que tenerlas muy controladas. Además, ellas
funcionan con premio, entonces hay que ponerles puntos por todo, o amenazarlas con
todo, si no, no trabajan ni hacen caso.
Researcher: ¿Cómo definiría las relaciones interpersonales de los estudiantes del curso?
Teacher: Ellas se la llevan muy bien entre todas. Yo no he visto problemas de
convivencia ni nada de eso.
Annex 2: Teachers’ field notes sample
DIARIO DE CAMPO. Observación de clase No. 2
Name: Nancy Milena Hincapié Valbuena
Date 28 de marzo, 2017. Hora: 8:15 / 9:15 am
Place: Colegio Liceo Femenino Mercedes Nariño
Topic: Class observation
SITUATION DESCRIPTION INTERPRETATION /
REFLECTION
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Today the class started with the
organization of the classroom because the
girls were taking their snack before the
English class. Sometime I noticed about
the classroom organization is that the
classroom tables are organized as a circle;
this way is easier for the teacher to have a
view of the entire classroom and the
students, and that way, for keeping the
order and the attention of the classroom.
The teacher gives the girls five minutes for
cleaning the classroom, but some of the
girls are quietly eating, so the teacher has
to repeat the instructions, this time,
stronger and they obey.
The class topic is ´numbers´ and colors,
and the teacher starts reminding the girls
the colors and the numbers they saw in the
previous class. The girls repeat after the
teacher every word, sometimes, not even
looking at him, at the board or the guides
the teacher gave them at the beginning of
the class. The guides the teacher used for
the class is based on Easter eggs draws
with colors which correspond to particular
numbers so they have to make numbers,
but the girls don’t seem to be interested at
all.
When the teacher finishes giving the
explanation to the girls about the activity
and the guides, they start coloring the
This gives me something to think
about, concerning the girls behavior,
but I don’t want to judge yet; this
would be something I will take into
account in the future if necessary.
This is the second class and the second
time I notice the girls’ repetition of
concepts, but, the fact that the girls are
not looking neither the teacher nor the
board or the guide, makes me think
they are used to that: repeat concepts
given by the teacher, to learn isolated
concepts and to solve guides.
In the previous field note I could
notice they love to color and decorate,
this is repeating here today, so this
could be one of the characteristics of
the students, and could be taken into
account in the characterization and
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Easter eggs, but they don’t really do the
actual activity which is making numbers
to get to know what color corresponds to
every egg. The teacher tells them to stop
and to make first the numbers to color the
eggs, and repeated the instructions. Some
of the girls started doing the activity, some
others are playing and doing other classes’
exercises and some others are just not
doing the activity. One thing that called
my attention today was that the guides
have a space to fulfill with the students’
personal information like phone number,
address, likes, among others, but the
teacher didn’t explain this item, so the
girls didn’t do it. They had to read and
write. The teacher went out of the
classroom for a second so I asked Nicol -
who was seated next to me- about the
instructions and she told me she didn’t
understand the reading, and, when I
explained to her the instructions she told -
“¿Cómo se escribe eso en inglés, teacher?
So I asked her -¿No sabes escribir nada en
inglés? So she told me they don´t write in
the English class, they sing, make guides
and play, but they have never read or
written in the English class.
Five minutes before the class finishes, the
teacher asks the girls to hand in the
activity and after checking it, he tells them
they didn’t do the exercise correctly
because they were worried just about
coloring, however, he tells them they did
a good job at coloring the eggs and asks
them to be more attentive to his
instructions next class.
could be the key for developing my
project in the future.
The behavior pattern is repeating here,
so I will pay attention to the girls’
behavior in front of the teacher; it
could have been, maybe the activity,
so, no judgment yet.
I could notice the girls don’t read;
according to what I saw in class and
according to what Nicol told me, so
this could be some starting point for
thinking of the problems of the
students in academic terms.
Respect their behavior, I will wait for
more sessions in the future to judge
their attitudes, so far, this is a good
group, with intelligent students who
understand the instructions, even
though the teacher has to repeat them.
I think the teacher was very gentle
when, even the girls didn’t do the
activity in the right way, he told the
girls they had done a good job when
coloring. It was sweet and the girls
appreciated it.
Annex 3: First students’ survey
Annex 4: Second students’ survey
Annex 5: Third students’ survey
Annex 6: Final students’ survey
Annex 7: Students’ interviews sample
S2
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LAST INTERVIEW
Teacher-researcher: Listo, señorita, la pregunta es De uno a cinco ¿Cómo
te consideras en escritura en inglés?
Student: Pues, yo me considero cinco, pues, porque he aprendido mucho
con el diario, sobre mi familia, a perfeccionar la escritura, el vocabulario,
la pronunciación, eso.
Teacher-researcher: ¡Listo! vale, ahora ¿Qué fue lo mejor del diario?
Student: Lo que más me gustó del diario fue que nos podemos expresar en
inglés
Teacher-researcher: ¡Wow! Ok. La siguiente es ¿Te ayudaron las
historias de mujer para escribir tu diario?
Student: Sí porque me enseñaron que para decir mi nombre hay 2 formas I
am y my name is
Teacher-researcher: ¿Qué es lo que más te gustó de las historias?
Student: Me gusta que Policarpa arriesgó su vida porque era una mujer
muy valiente, como yo
Teacher-researcher: ¿Qué aprendiste de las historias de Policarpa y
Frida?
He aprendido sobre mi país, que las mujeres servimos para mucho,
podemos hacer más que los hombres; nosotras podemos hacer muchas
cosas en un sólo momento, somos muy buenas, y que yo puedo ser lo que
yo quiera.
Teacher-researcher: ¿Crees que el rol de una mujer es importante en la
sociedad?
Student: Sí, obvio porque es la que le da la belleza a todo. Es una persona
muy importante.
Teacher-researcher: ¿Listo? Muchas gracias.
Annex 8: Students’ diaries samples
Annex 9: Class lesson plan sample
LESSON PLAN: Discovering real heroines! Teachers: Nohemi Cely and Milena Hincapié
Subject: Heroines characteristics/Family members
Classroom: 304-306 Beginners A1
Date: September 5th
Number of students :72
Unit/Lesson: Unit 1/ Lesson C
TIME: 50 Minutes
OBJECTIVES
To identify characteristics that make students heroines. They will recognize that family is an important part of a heroine’s life, they will learn how to describe their family members Communication: Students will be able to identify and describe their family members Language: The verb “to be”, descriptions, personal pronouns Vocabulary: Family, who’s this? Task: Use present simple and personal pronouns to describe family members Learning strategies: Use background knowledge
PROCEDURE
Warm up: (15 min) (T-S) (Materials: Balloons, markers, flash cards, sheets of paper with family members’ vocabulary.) Teachers will give some balloons to the students, students will play “stop” drawing on the balloons the family members. Students will be organized in rows. Instructional setting: Small groups
STEPS
1. Teachers will give instructions: “We will talk about the family members. Let’s create a family! it will be written on the board “My family”
2. Teachers will explain the game: Every row will receive a balloon and a marker, students will have to draw a family group in three minutes and the first group to finish wins the activity.
3. After the first activity, teachers will place some flashcards about the family members on the board. They will have the family vocabulary on sheets of paper, they will show it to the girls and will start describing the family members by using some adjectives and pronouns, so the girls will identify what family member corresponds to that noun : Model: -Teacher: “She is strong, lovely, beautiful” - Students: (pointing out) “That, the mother!”
4. The last step: After the vocabulary introduction, students will go back to their balloons and will identify the family members they previously draw.
5. The socializations: Students will share with their partners the family members they draw.
TRANSITION
Teachers will remark the family vocabulary one more time, without the sheets of paper under the flashcards “Who’s this? ... and this?”. “Now we are going to continue discovering the interesting Policarpa’s life, in this class; her family”
DEVELOPMENT PRESENTATION (15 min) (T-S) (Materials: Policarpa’s fanzine, diary, board, markers) ACTIVITY 1 Students will continue discovering Policarpa’s life through the fanzine Instructional setting: Individual Step 1 Pre Reading:
1. Teachers will remind students about what they discovered about Policarpa in the previous session by asking questions.
2. Teachers will give the class instructions to the students and after everything is clear and the tables are clean, teachers will hand in Policarpa’s fanzine to students and will introduce the corresponding pages for this lesson.
Step 2 Reading: Teachers will read part of the book (Pages 4 to 9) and students will follow the reading in their own fanzine. Step 3 Post Reading (Comprehension)
1. Teacher will propose some questions such as “What do you think about Policarpa?” Was
Policarpa a conventional girl? 2. Teachers will ask some questions about the read pages and will remark the role of Policarpa’s
family on the book.
TRANSITION
Teachers will clarify some doubts and they will give other words related to family members: uncle, aunt, cousin, grandpa... PRACTICE (20min) (T-S) (Materials: Policarpa’s fanzine, Diaries)
ACTIVITY 2 “Let’s present our families”
1. Students will draw their families. 2. Students will present their families using the previous draws and the model sentence
Model This is my mother ...this is my brother... Assessment/Feedback Teachers will correct mistakes if necessary, and will congratulate students for their efforts Homework: Students will bring some vocabulary related to leisure activities as Play soccer, watch TV, singing etc.
Annex 10: Policarpa’s Fanzine
Annex 11: Format consent